Touch and Go Read Online Free PDF Page A

passed round the back of his own car and proceeded to detach the spare can from the running-board on the off side. There was no more talk until The Bomb was refuelled. Then Sarah said, “Thank you,” and Mr. Brown said, “I shouldn’t do it again if I were you—you might get killed.” After which he went back to his own car and waited for Sarah to drive away. As soon as The Bomb was out of sight he backed into the space in front of the ghostly pillars, turned his car, and also followed the road to town.

CHAPTER V
    You can get a meal at The Lizard during most hours of the day or night, and you can call that meal anything you like. The waiters themselves stop alluding to breakfast at twelve-thirty or so, to lunch at half past three, and to dinner somewhere round about ten o’clock, but they have no objection to your calling your food by any name you fancy. As a natural consequence, nobody minds what you wear. There is a garage just round the corner.
    Sarah tidied up at the garage, used the lipstick which she had denied herself in order to impress Aunt Marina, cocked her hat at a slightly more rakish angle, and proceeded to her rendezvous with Mr. Darnac.
    The Lizard was neither full nor empty. As a matter of fact Sarah had never seen the Lizard really empty. Whenever you came, or whenever you went, there were always odd people having odd meals or odder drinks. Bertrand was neither eating nor drinking. He sat humped in his chair with all the appearance of a person who has just died of boredom. “Boredom and extreme bad temper,” thought Sarah delightedly.
    She approached the table with a catlike tread, sank noiselessly into the second chair, and said in a clear, brisk voice,
    â€œWhen’s the funeral, Ran?”
    Mr. Darnac sat up with a jerk. His eyes opened. He ceased to resemble a corpse and became very obviously alive, exasperated, and French.
    â€œBut vois tu , Sarah, this is—what do you call it?—the top-lid. Have you, perhaps, any idea what time it is?”
    â€œâ€™M—it’s twenty-three minutes and a half past nine, and I’m simply starving. I hope you’ve got lots of money, because I’m going to be a very expensive guest. Just tell Henri to get me some of the thickest soup they’ve got, and then to keep right on bringing me things till I say no. Everything on the menu. Ran darling, how frightfully cross you are!”
    Bertrand Darnac frowned until his very thin, mobile eyebrows looked as if they had been ruled across his forehead with a piece of charcoal. He was a tall, dark young man of three or four and twenty, and ordinarily of a pleasant and vivacious ugliness. He gave the order to Henri in the grand manner of serious offence and turned back to find Sarah smiling at him seductively. It amused her that Bertrand should be in a temper, but she had no notion of allowing him to stay in one. She was bubbling over with her adventure, and you really can’t bubble over to a person who is being all stiff and proud. She thought complacently about the lipstick and smiled her best.
    â€œWhere have you been?” said Mr. Darnac with offence.
    â€œWhere haven’t I been? Darling Ran, if I talk before I have something to eat, I shall swoon.”
    The eybrows relaxed a little.
    â€œYou do not look at all as if you were going to swoon.”
    â€œUnder the rouge her face was of a ghastly pallor” murmured Sarah. “I’ve got a new lipstick. How do you like it?”
    â€œIt is good. Yes, just right. You must continue to use it.”
    â€œPerhaps Aunt Marina won’t let me,” said Sarah. She greeted the arrival of the soup with a radiant smile. “Henri, you have saved my life. Now, Ran, I’m not going to say another word till this is all gone.”
    Mr. Darnac permitted himself a slight snigger.
    â€œIf you can keep from talking, my dear, that will be a—how do you say?—knock-out.”
    Sarah